A team huddle is a meeting you can use to brief your team and prepare team members for the upcoming day or week. Many organizations use team huddles to share essential information and motivate people. Company leaders and managers can help staff members work together and be more productive by using team huddles effectively. Learn more about team huddles, their benefits, and tips for leading them.
“Team huddles allow people to coordinate their actions, allowing leaders to assess people's progress and support their careers. Some companies have regular meetings, and others hold several types of team huddles at different intervals.”
What is a team huddle?
A team huddle can include various staff members and team leaders, often covering many different topics. Team huddles allow people to coordinate their actions, allowing leaders to quickly assess people's progress and support their careers. Some companies have regular meetings, and others hold several types of team huddles at different intervals.
Explore some of the types of team huddles you can use at work:
Management huddle
A management huddle allows people in leadership positions to share information and discuss their goals. This type of huddle usually happens every two weeks, but it can be rarer or more frequent depending on company needs.
Company huddle
A company-wide huddle includes all staff members from all departments. People often use them to discuss new plans, projects, goals, or strategies, and these types of huddles often happen at the beginning of a new fiscal year or a new quarter.
Motivation huddle
A motivation huddle helps team members with the support they need to complete a task or project. Leaders can use these huddles to give people words of encouragement when morale is low.
Team or department huddle
A team huddle is a routine huddle that happens among team members. The team leader or manager provides updates and directions for projects and tasks and asks for progress reports from staff members. This type of huddle often takes less than 20 minutes and can happen every day or several times per week. A department huddle is similar but includes a larger group of people. This gathering usually happens more rarely than a team huddle. Different teams within a department can use a department huddle to collaborate.
Remote huddle
A remote huddle happens through a conference call or an online video call. It's useful for people who work from home or travel frequently, and any type of huddle can also be remote. Remote huddles also make recording meetings and placing them online easier for people to view later.
The benefits of implementing team huddles
According to a Gallup poll, only 36% of employees engage with their work and workplace. Team huddles can let you increase this number and boost productivity and profits. They give managers chances to:
- Motivate staff members by discussing their current progress toward company goals
- Offer support and encouragement to workers
- Help people work together, brainstorm strategies, and create actionable plans for reaching their goals
- Encourage colleagues to interact with each other and get to know one another
- Answer questions and offer additional training to employees after any change to a business, like new software implementation or equipment introductions
Tips for leading team huddles
Keeping your company's team huddles short and focused can help them benefit your business more. Review these additional tips for efficient, effective team huddles:
Prepare for each team huddle
- Before you start a huddle, prepare an agenda to make sure you use your time wisely.
- Create a list of points to address, and order them by importance.
- Give team members small tasks to help them prepare to accomplish something in the team huddle.
You could ask everyone to summarize their progress during the last several days. Set a time limit for the huddle and avoid wasting time by keeping people there longer than the limit.
Use music and food
You can help motivate people and reduce stress by creating an office playlist with some of your employees' favorite songs. Then, you can start and end your team huddle with some fun music. You can also make the meeting more welcoming by providing a meal or snacks with drinks like coffee or tea. If the team meets virtually, you can still have a meal together remotely.
Focus on identifying problems
Team huddles are usually short meetings, and there may not be time to solve all problems. Focus on identifying issues, and then you can schedule separate discussions to solve them. To keep people productive, only invite the staff members who can help you to the problem-solving meeting.
Form a compliment circle
You can motivate people and help them get along by forming a compliment circle. After your team huddle, ask everyone to form a circle and give a compliment to the person on one's right or left. Virtual teams can use the chat or comment feature to offer compliments.
Praise the best team members
A team huddle is ideal for rewarding the best-performing employees. Instead of praising people privately, tell them they did an excellent job in front of the entire team. Letting them know that they received a raise, a bonus, a gift card for a nice restaurant, or another reward in front of others motivates other team members and encourages friendly competition. You can also use a team huddle to praise the entire team and boost everyone's morale.
Use stretches and breathing exercises in morning team huddles
Many companies have team huddles in the morning, and taking a few minutes for some quick stretches and breathing exercises can help wake everyone up and help them feel more productive. Increasing your employees' heart rates and sending more oxygen flowing through their bodies can boost their brain power and improve their thought processes.
Change team huddle locations often
Having a regular team huddle in the same location can eventually seem boring or routine to employees. Instead, consider having your team huddle in a different room within the office, at a nearby coffee shop, or in a park. You can also have your meeting outside your business if the landscaping nearby looks attractive.
Change agendas often as well
Even if you switch locations, team members might get bored if your team huddle's agendas are always similar. You can surprise people with different activities in each team huddle and create visual aids to stimulate interest in presentations. You can occasionally play creative games, brainstorm with the entire team huddle, break up into smaller groups, or give team members gifts with the company logo, like pens or coffee mugs, to thank them for their service.
Emphasize huddle highlights
After each huddle, you can email team members the essential information discussed during the gathering. That way, people won't miss helpful information even if they miss a huddle. They can also inform staff members about any significant points they forgot to cover.
Team huddles are helpful for people in many different industries, from health care to software development and auto manufacturing. Use the techniques above to learn more about creating an efficient team huddle. You can avoid wasting time and help team members coordinate their actions.
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Related reading: Team management
A regular team huddle can help you build successful teams and increase productivity.
Team huddles can improve company culture, increasing retention and employee success.
With virtual team huddles, you can successfully manage employees who work remotely.
You can also use team huddles to help make your team's work environment a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
